Graduation Night

Every year at TFA's graduation, several of the Kindergarten kids sing a song to the Seniors. Well, Cole knows quite a few of the seniors - mostly from Chris' basketball team, but he knows a few others also, along with many other high school students. When Cole hurt his arm a few months ago, Chris was out of town, so he asked Ginger, the Asst. Athletic Director, to get Cole out of class and take him over to the high school building, where Dave (a former trainer with the Magic) teachers science classes. Dave is quite familiar with injuries, so he was going to look at Cole's arm and recommend if we needed to take him for x-rays. Cole ended up seeing several high school students he knew over there, so by the end of the day, it seemed like everyone knew Cole had hurt his arm. I had kids coming up to me asking how Cole's arm was, and I was left confused as to how they knew, until I put all the pieces together. And Cole thought it was quite cool to get to go to the high school building and see all the big kids...

So, back to graduation... first, as the kids marched up on stage (or rather, Cole was "bouncing" up to the stage), he saw a few high school kids so he turned to wave as he was walking up the stairs...and ran straight into the microphone! I couldn't see that it was him but I sure heard it (the loud thump) - Chris told me about it later, because he was sitting up front, on the side ramp and had a great view of Cole walking up the stage. And then the kids got all lined up on stage, and Cole decided to do a big wave to his favorite basketball seniors, Kacey and Jake. He did a great job though during the song, doing the hand motions and singing (he usually just does one or the other!). Someone took a few pictures of him for me. The first is actually a picture of the video on the big screen.


Cole is in the back row, yellow shirt.

Doughnuts with Dad

Cole's class celebrated Muffins with Mom last week in honor of Mother's Day. Since school is out when Father's Day comes around, they go ahead and do something for the dads called Doughnuts with Dad. Of course, Cole was super excited about this one too. I didn't sleep much the night before (due to this stuff up my nose, crazy medications, not being able to breathe, etc), so I was a little out of it when they got ready to go that morning, but Cole was up bright and early, dressed and ready to go. Daddy (who I must take a moment to brag on and say that he is a SUPER dad) did a good job taking pictures - even thought to take a few pictures of some of Cole's creations (which Mommy did NOT think to do!)

Another birthday picture

I realized after posting that I had no pictures of my parents with Luke or Ansley (the birthday kids!). This is the only one I got - Mom (aka Nana) playing with Luke as he opened one of his presents from them. I think Papa was running around playing with Cole during these pictures.

What a week!

I read something a few weeks ago about being busy versus full... Busy was described as frantic, stressed, weary - Full is satisfying, fruitful, joy with serving. Busy gets distracted by many things - Full is receiving, trusting God as the provider and source. Busy takes control of my time and energy, while Full renews my strength and comes from a life in the Spirit. Busy gets results - Full brings rewards... I think I could say that we had a very "Full" week last week. Maybe a little busy but definitely full! Tutoring is in full swing for me (end of the year and exam crunch) and it was end of the year stuff for the homeschool program last week. I spent several days last week gone all day and most of the evening from my home... I LOVE my home - I am even more especially thankful for it after having been "homeless" for 3 months last year (very dear friends let us rent their home while we looked for a home to buy after selling our previous home, but it was not able to be much of a home - it was very temporary). This past weekend actually marked our 1 year anniversary of owning this home - May 9, 2008 was a very happy day for us indeed! So, we had one of those weeks where there was alot going on, and I have to say that I was almost (just a little) grateful for a little sinus surgery, so that I had a reason that I HAD to stay home for a few days!

Here's some of our Full week:

My dear friend Jen

I have been blessed with a very wonderful friend...I think it's been about 10 years now?... After living with them for a few months (many years ago, once again when we were in between houses!) and having a miscarriage during that time, Jason and Jen truly became our precious friends. We have walked through alot of "life" together. My heart hurts for all their family is enduring now, so I cherish even more so my time with her. Wednesday night at Bible Study we had a sorta-surprise birthday party for her. Yeah, didn't think it would be much of a surprise (she had an idea) but it was still fun. And we started a new Beth Moore study (Esther) which I am super excited about.

Thursday night Chris had the Athletic Banquet at school, so when he got home, I headed over to Jen's to celebrate her real birthday, since Jason wasn't due home till the following day. It was kind of nice to have a girls night after a busy (I mean, full) week (and a slightly emotional week after learning about all of Dad's cancer stuff). So we, along with Lindsey, Jen's wonderful sister, dove into a chocolate chip cookie cake (yummy!) and watched the movie Bride Wars (great chick flic!). (Sorry Jen, unfortunately there's no "air brush" on my computer to add some make-up on us!)

Friday morning was oh-so sweet. Cole's class had their Muffins with Mom (to celebrate Mother's Day). Cole has been talking about this for several weeks and was up bright and early, because of course, he was super excited about it. We had muffins and fruit (Cole served me breakfast), received gifts our child had made for us, and then the class sang several songs. Boy, I don't know how Mrs. Cline manages 16 little five and six year olds... Kindergarten teachers truly are special.

Friday night Nana and Papa came... Poor Papa, he had a biopsy on Friday morning and wasn't feeling up to par just yet. The kids were so excited to see them, and he was such a good sport, even though he felt crummy. Thankfully, he and Nana were able to get to bed pretty early, while Chris and I stayed up to finish this (thank you honey! I know you wanted to go to bed but you were a great assistant!)

Ansley's dance recital was on Saturday morning. While I think she enjoyed taking the ballet and tap this year, it wasn't her favorite (and don't think she's meant to be a professional dancer!). But I do have to say she sure looked cute in her little outfit and up on stage.

Chris and I got tickled at this...she is such a "stop and smell the roses" type child and sometimes gets out in lala land. Her class was lined up to come back on stage at the end with all the different classes, and she was still standing there, twirling her flower and looking around while her class filed on to the stage. The lady who was helping is motioning on the side of the picture to tell her to "come on!". :-)

And finally, while I'm going for the longest post ever... Luke's birthday party was that afternoon (and sort of Ansley's - we will celebrate hers later this month with a few of her little girl friends but the family brought her presents too). Luke was so tired by the time we got to the cake (it was past nap time for him), so we didn't get much enthusiasm from him.

The poor child...we FORGOT to let him open his presents...after eating cake, Chris put him down for his nap. So then we woke him up early (he did get a good nap in and needed to be woken up so he would go to bed at a decent hour, but he was a little dazed when opening his presents!).

Swimming Lessons

I liked swimming lessons better last year when Luke couldn't talk. This year he cried over and over "Mommy! Mommy!" for the first two days. It was much better on the 3rd day - I think he realized "she's not getting me out and it's much better if I stop screaming"...

Somebody's about to be 2...

Definitely close to age 2... though he's been having these tantrums for awhile now... These pictures were taken yesterday - he got mad because I wouldn't let him get something out of the refrigerator... and then he yanked some magnets off and threw them, which then turned into a standoff between mommy and child.

"Luke, pick up the magnets and put them on the refrigerator."

"No!!!"

That went on many, many times. I made sure and took his hand to the magnet so he would know what I was talking about.

It was a very long 30 minutes.

And yes, he did finally pick up the magnets... Whew!

Sweet little girl

I realized I had something on each of the boys, so Ans, it's all you now!

This picture is actually about a year old (Easter last year), but I love it.

As I prepare to write this, I think my mom would say that Ansley is alot like I was... not sure if that's good or bad?... She has such a tender spirit and a sweet, sweet heart. I love how she is so sensitive to others. We have to work hard with Cole to see outside of his little self-circle, to look at others, be sensitive of others needs, etc. It just doesn't come natural to him.

But it does for Ansley. One of my best friends has three little boys, two with special needs. The oldest is in Ansley's class at school, and he's also in her class at church. We have had many discussions about loving on Cade, even though God made him different and also that he can still get his feelings hurt, even if he can't communicate as well as other kids. I love it when I pick her up from class at church and the teacher tells me how Ansley was almost protective of her special friend, staying right with him. Ansley seems to go more out of her way to play with him and be around him, and she always wants to know where he was if he is absent from school.

And not too long ago, a precious family from our school lost their little baby to a disease called EB (abbreviated for a very long name). One of their sons is in Cole's class, so we were really following their story. Jameson (the baby) was in the hospital for over a week before he finally passed away, so we had been talking about and praying for him and his family. I decided to show the kids the family's blog (http://jtsetsma.blogspot.com/). As soon as Ansley saw the precious baby who had a skin disease, she started to cry. She wanted to know if he was o.k, if it hurt him, and she said it made her so sad. It made me sad too, but makes me happy to know that Ansley has a sweet, sensitive heart. And I pray that she never loses that!

On the other hand, she also has a strong, stubborn will (why do all of my kids have that?). There have been a few times in the past few weeks that I have looked at her and thought "Who took my sweet little girl away? Who IS this??" So now we are trying to get creative in our discipline of our little "middle child". I think my mom said I was pretty difficult at age 4, but it got better around 5?? We are only a month away from turning 5, so I'm hoping things change quick! :-)